Eugene de Mazenod, at 23 years of age, angrily writes to his father about this portrait.
You think that the 54 francs I spent, in having my portrait engraved, were well spent; but I am very sorry to have to tell you that it was money wasted. I am furious with this M. Chretien who, after making a drawing which was perfectly life-like, made an engraving from it which was not. I was expecting that he would flatter me, but he had the talent to make me completely ugly.
From my nose to my mouth, he has established a monstrous distance, he has obligingly provided me with a long- pointed chin and thought it good to place this chin on top of a second one. All these features give the lower part of my face an exaggerated length and leave it horribly out of proportion. Now you will know (because I’m annoyed) that the distance that is between my nose and my mouth is very strongly regular, that my chin is not double and it is in no way pointed. When I received these prints in Paris, I was tempted to throw them into the fire. As people claim to recognize me in this portrait in spite of all its defects, I am sending you one of the engravings
Letter to his father, 26 December 1805, Mejanes Library, Aix
Again, an example to show his outlook and values before he was transformed . Five years later he would look at himself and life from a totally different perspective, through the eyes of Christ the Savior:
Thanks be to God, I don’t think I can be accused of luxury or being over-particular about myself, and I hope no one will ever be able to find fault with me on that account, (cf. https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=54 )
and later showed this in his Rule of Life for the Oblates: (https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=1451 ) 
“An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth… Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.” Pope Francis
Isn’t interesting how we see ourselves and how others see us, how we see others. I have looked at this picture of Eugene and found my eyes drawn towards his hair – how carefully he must have combed it to look as it did. Did they have gel to use on their hair in those days? I have never noticed the amount of space between his nose and his lips, or that he might have had a double chin and have never had the urge to measure.
Eugene was looking at a picture of himself through eyes which were not yet capable of seeing who he was. I suspect it was not until he saw himself through the eyes of God that he was able to lose concern about how he thought he was supposed to look. I see the man he grew into, the saint who loved God with all that he was and who gave his all to God and others. I see in him a person who was so alive and of course still is, he lives on in others.
A few years back I made a small pilgrimage to Europe, where I met and visited with Oblates and Associates in three different countries. I met the most beautiful people there. And when I think back and the images of all of them run through my mind they are truly some of the most beautiful people I have met because I see them through the eyes of love, see the gift that they are. And when I look at pictures of myself there with all of them I seem to be either laughing or smiling widely in all of them. I wonder idly what they saw in me. Did they see or realise how much life they shared with me, did they recognize the beauty within themselves that most surely was reflected back at them when they looked into my eyes?
It is a little like looking at the eyes of the poor – have you ever noticed just how incredibly beautiful they are? You see it in their suffering? It happens when we love – then we recognize and connect with God – in them and in ourselves. I suspect that the only one who can make me look ugly might be myself and then I realise that even when I was doing that to myself God was loving me and seeing beauty because of my suffering and his love.
I look at all the people in my community and my parish, in my life. I still struggle with some of them but I try not to let that change or limit how I see them, how I perceive their beauty, how I love them. Love is really the great game changer.